The subject of finance once broached, it was naturally discovered that the hero toiled for a very meagre pittance, that he was getting on in years, and had a wife and family depending on him—­and—­promptly, there opened out the subscription lists.  People were stirred, and they gave nicely, on the lower scale certainly, with shillings and guineas predominating; but the lists totalled up to L2,400, which to some people, of course, is gilded affluence.

Now Captain Kettle had endured all this publicity with a good deal of restiveness, and had used language to one or two interviewers who managed to ferret him out, which fairly startled them; but this last move for a public subscription made him furious.  He spoke in the captain’s room of the hostelry he used, of the degradation which was put on him, and various other master mariners who were present entirely agreed with him.  “I might be a blessed missionary, or India-with-a-famine, the way they’re treating me,” he complained bitterly.  “If they call a meeting to give me anything, I’ll chuck the money in their faces, and let them know straight what I think.  By James! do they suppose I’ve got no pride?  Why can’t they let me alone?  If the Grosser Carl people pay up for that cargo, that’s all I want.”

But the eternal healer, Time, soothed matters down wonderfully.  Captain Owen Kettle’s week’s outing in the daily papers ran its course with due thrills and headlines, and then the Press forgot him, and rushed on to the next sensation.  By the time the subscription list had closed and been brought together, the Flamingo had sailed for her next slow round trip in the Mexican Gulf, and when her captain returned to find a curt, formal letter from a firm of bankers, stating that L2,400 had been placed to his credit in their establishment, he would have been more than human if he had refused it.  And, as a point of fact, after consulting with Madam, his wife, he transformed it into houses in that terrace of narrow dwellings in Birkenhead which represented the rest of his savings.

Now on paper this house property was alleged by a sanguine agent to produce at the rate of L15 per annum apiece, and as there were thirty-six houses, this made an income—­on paper—­of well over L500 a year, the which is a very nice possession.

A thing, moreover, which Captain Kettle had prophesied had come to pass.  The “trade connection” in the Mexican Gulf had been very seriously damaged.  As was somewhat natural, the commercial gentry there did not relish having their valuable cargo pitched unceremoniously to Neptune, and preferred to send what they had by boats which did not contrive to meet burning emigrant liners.  This, of course, was quite unreasonable of them, but one can only relate what happened.

And then the second part of the prophecy evolved itself naturally.  Messrs. Bird discovered from the last indent handed them that more paint had been used over the Flamingo’s fabric than they thought consistent with economy, and so they relieved Captain Kettle from the command, handed him their check for wages due—­there was no commission to be added for such an unsatisfactory voyage as this last—­and presented him gratis with their best wishes for his future welfare.